TRANSACTIONS. 9 
September last I received from Newton-Stewart a specimen of a 
shark called the Porbeagle Shark. It was 9 feet in length and 
weighed about 400 lbs. It is described as being rare, or at least 
very seldom seen upon our shores. This one was caught in Loch- 
ryan, having got entangled in some fishermen’s nets, and was with 
difficulty brought to land. It has three rows of very sharp teeth 
in the upper as well as in the under jaw, and is said to be very 
voracious, having been known to attack men in a small boat and 
tear their clothes off their backs. It lives upon other fishes, 
and will have no difficulty in swallowing a fish two feet long at a 
mouthful. It was not a very agreeable subject to handle. 
TIL. Folk Lore in Tynron. By Mr JAMES SHAW. 
An old farmer who died three years ago in Tynron related to 
me his experience with a witch in Closeburn when he was a boy. 
He was carting freestones from a neighbouring quarry, when his 
horse came to a standstill opposite the witch’s door. . Two other 
carters passed him, and only jeered both at the witch and the 
boy, when the former, to whom he had always been civil, came 
forward and with a slight push adjusted the ponderous stone which 
had slipped and was stopping the wheel. ‘“ Now, go,” she said, 
“thou wilt find them at the gate below Gilchristland.” At that 
very spot he found the perplexed carters standing, both horses 
trembling and sweating, so that he easily went past them and got 
to his goal first. The same individual could name a person at 
whose glance the milk being drawn from the udders of the cows 
became blood, while his sister was milking them. I have observed 
horse-shoes nailed up against his stable wall to scare away uncanny 
influence. A dairywoman who resided beside me about fifteen years 
-ago informed me that when young she had resided in Kirkconnel, 
Tynron, and that the house was haunted. At night strange faces 
peered in at the window, and eldritch laughter was heard. Her 
father once saw a red figure at dusk on the ledge of the bridge, 
near the house, which appeared of human shape, but disappeared 
as he approached. He also on one occasion saw my informant’s 
sweetheart on the road coming to see her, although at the time he 
was several miles off. A housekeeper I had, who died a few years 
ago, assured me that, while she was a servant with a medical man 
in Moniaive, strange foot-falls were frequently heard in an upper 
room. The doctor, after a while, suddenly took ill, lay down on a 
sofa and died, over the very spot on the floor where these alarming 
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